1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor laser element including a window region with a disordered portion formed by diffusion of group-III vacancies, and a non-window region with an active layer of a quantum well structure, where a promoting film that absorbs a predetermined atom to promote the diffusion of the group-III vacancies is provided on the window region to form the disordered portion, and to a method of manufacturing the semiconductor laser element.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in semiconductor laser elements that output laser beams by amplifying light generated by recombination of carriers within active layers, light-emitting facets may be degraded due to strong light densities and damage called catastrophic optical damage (COD) may be caused. As a countermeasure against this damage, it has been proposed to provide window regions that absorb less laser light than the insides of active layers, by increasing energy-band gaps at light-emitting facets.
In recent years, to form a window region in a GaAs semiconductor laser element, there has been proposed a technique using an impurity free vacancy disordering (IFVD) method of disordering a region corresponding to the window region by performing a predetermined thermal treatment after depositing a promoting film formed correspondingly to the window region to promote diffusion of Ga and a suppression film formed correspondingly to a non-window region to suppress the diffusion of Ga (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H7-122816).